An icon of French Romanticism thanks to the enduring popularity of his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette, Charles Gounod competed three times for the prestigious Prix de Rome between 1837 and 1839. Thus he composed three unpublished cantatas for soloists and orchestra, including Marie Stuart et Rizzio and La Vendetta, which he never had the opportunity to hear in performance. Revealed for the first time, these three cantatas, fine examples of French Romanticism, show a young composer with a remarkable flair for opera. In the end Fernand won him the coveted prize, carrying with it the privilege of a three-year stay (from 1840) at the Villa Medici in Rome. While there he produced several sacred compositions, which have also remained unknown until now. His splendid Messe vocale for unaccompanied choir, written in a neo-Palestrinian style, deserves a place on the programme of every vocal ensemble.

REVIEWS:

Although all the cantatas on Disc One tug with tension, the most poignant display of Gounod’s might falls inside Fernand. Akin to Karine Deshayes, Judith Van Wanroij’s Zelmire reveals remarkable, flexible dramatic delivery, and a buoyantly light timbre. Her lover, Alamir (sung by tenor Yu Shao), shines inside the lyrically French passages with excellent enunciation while Nicolas Courjal sings with such sensitivity to draw out the selfless tendencies of the Spaniard, Fernand. The music’s orchestral interludes anticipate Faust, yet there is a marked feel of Félicien David and his Herculanum. Brilliant from beginning to end.

The four selections on the second CD give variety through mixed voices and soothing organ accompaniment by François Saint-Yves. Hervé Niquet’s direction is pristine and well-reflected through the Flemish Radio Choir with well-balanced and attentive diction upon every turn of the page. Each composition suffuses platonic rapture: undemanding on the ear, lyrically light, sweet in melody.

Anyone who cherishes the magnificence of Charles Gounod would be well to collect this little treasure.

– ConcertoNet.com (Christie Grimstad)

Music-making, at least here, is first-rate with orchestra, choir, and soloists all of the highest quality. Packaging is plush, with bound booklets in French and English containing much biographical and detailed musical information on the artists, their early musical careers, and the music included on the discs. At least with Gounod, one can hear the young composer’s increasing aptitude and increasing confidence as his skills are honed, first in the parochial French competitions and then in the real world of paid artistic commissions. I would guess we are all generally pleased that Gounod eventually abandoned the relatively modestly remunerative life of ecclesiastical music to turn to operatic blockbusters such as Faust and Roméo et Juliet, but these pleasant and melodious apprentice works also deserve to be heard, to be heard in quality productions, and to take their rightful place in the pantheon of recorded music. Highly recommended.

-- Fanfare

Prompted by the success of Ossian’s poetry during the First Empire, the Opéra-Comique commissioned from Méhul a short and gripping work inspired by James Macpherson’s Celtic reveries. The composer had the brilliant idea of conjuring up the mists of this Scottish fantasy world in his music by using the ‘grisaille’ sonority of an orchestra without violins. The Gothic coloration of wind instruments with divided violas, the melancholy poetry of the harp and solo horn that frequently emerge from the tutti, contrast with the choruses of warriors and the belligerent strains of Larmor and Uthal. The Hymn to Sleep, an eminently Romantic bardic song, came to be seen as one of Méhul’s finest pieces, and was sung over his grave by the Conservatoire students at his funeral in 1817.

After composing Fiesque and Le Roi d'Ys, Edouard Lalo embarked on the composition of what he intended as his masterpiece; a historical and moral opera set against the background of a peasants' revolt. However Lalo died unexpectedly, having completed only the first act. His family entrusted Arthur Coquard with the task of completing the work. The work had a successful premiere in March, 1895 and was revived in Lyon and Paris during the same year.

REVIEW:

The opera was a succès d’estime in its day, with productions in Lyon and Paris following on from its premiere. Thereafter it sank into obscurity until its revival last year in concert by Radio France, under the auspices of Palazetto Bru Zane, in Paris and Montpellier, where this live recording was made. Conducted by Patrick Davin, it has a restless energy that draws you in and keeps you engaged throughout. The playing is richly detailed, the choral singing fiercely committed and there are some fine central performances. Charles Castronovo’s Robert is all persuasive elegance and ringing high notes: you believe in him as a charismatic revolutionary, and he brings real passion to his scenes with Véronique Gens’s smoky toned Blanche, who is equally convincing as a refined aristocrat, questioning her own moral values as her world slowly crumbles around her. Nora Gubisch’s Jeanne makes up in intensity for what she sometimes lacks in steadiness, and the two baritones are nicely contrasted: Boris Pinkhasovich’s Guillaume sounds very baleful and obsessive; Jean-Sébastien Bou’s Comte gradually strips back the layers of hauteur to reveal the man’s essential vulnerability. The recording itself is scrupulously balanced, with only the final applause to remind us it was made live. A fascinating work, superbly done.

-- Gramophone

Félicien David was already famous through his ‘ode-symphonie’ Le Désert (1844) when his opera Herculanum was first staged at the Paris Opéra in 1859. This ambitious work, later to gain him entrance to the Opéra-Comique and the Institut de France, also played a part in earning him the Légion d’Honneur. Leaving behind the Middle Eastern inflections of his earlier scores, Herculanum is a remarkably strong composition (vast, intensely dramatic scenes), impressive in the diversity of its style (including Verdian influences) and its vocal variety (including the rare coloratura contralto voice often used by Rossini). There is also a fantastic vein, as made popular by Boieldieu (La Dame blanche, 1825) and Meyerbeer (Robert le Diable, 1831); but the supernatural is used here to serve an openly stated mysticism: the eruption of Vesuvius brings a spectacular, cataclysmic ending, signifying the decadence of the ancient world and the triumph of Christianity.

REVIEW:

Anyone interested in this period of operatic history will find the release fascinating. There’s much to enjoy, too, from the singers, who by and large make as eloquent a case for the piece as one could reasonably imagine. Véronique Gens is in fine, classy form as Lilia, and is well matched by Edgaras Montvidas as Hélios. Karine Deshayes is terrific as Olympia, too, although might perhaps have offered more in the way of imperious hauteur. The lower-voiced men are perhaps a touch disappointing, with Nicolas Courjal a rather too avuncular Satan. Hervé Niquet conducts with spirit, and the orchestra and chorus sing and play with commitment.

-- Gramophone

Victorin Joncières is the epitome of the Romantic artist who, throughout his life, relentlessly overcame the barriers that were set in his path. He never took the easy way out by composing commercial music; he never held an academic or official position. Dimitri, his masterpiece of 1876, reminds us that he was a contemporary of Gounod and also a champion of Wagner. This opera carries on the tradition (begun by Meyerbeer) of spectacular, monumental works. It takes the listener from a monastery near the River Don to a palace in Krakow, and to the castle of Wyksa, then Red Square in Moscow. At that time, Bayreuth, Orange and Béziers were about to turn opera into a popular art with mass appeal. + complete libretto in French and English

There’s not a single work here that will not captivate you with its breathtaking beauty.

Each volume in the "Portraits" series is devoted to a French composer who has now largely been forgotten; it presents a panorama of his works, performed by many artists from various backgrounds. Torn between France and Germany during his lifetime as a result of the turbulent political situation in his native Lorraine, Theodore Gouvy was recognized by neither nation after his death. The music of this composer, inspired by the passionate style of Mendelssohn, magnified by the nobility of French academicism, is nevertheless of great importance. This CD-book presents a significant selection of his works - for the most part never heard before - along with biographical information, excerpts from letters, and articles discussing the composer's style and personality.

REVIEW:

For most of the works on these three discs these are first recordings. As far as I can tell, only the Piano Trio No. 4 in a performance by Voces Intimae on Challenge Classics, and the Sinfonietta in a performance by Jacques Mercier and the German Radio Philharmonic on CPO, have previously appeared on disc; and that’s my segue into describing this very special and very elaborate collection.

I’m not going to give a detailed description of each of the works on these three CDs, other than to say there’s not a single one of them that will not captivate you with its breathtaking beauty. The Fantaisie Pastorale for violin and orchestra is styled in somewhat similar vein to some of Saint-Saëns’s lesser-known violin pieces. It’s tunefully rural in that easygoing sort of French folksong-y way that characterizes Bizet’s L’Arlésienne music, and it’s sweetly, even chirpily played by soloist Tedi Papavrami.

Gouvy composed La Religieuse, translated in the notes as “The Nun,” in 1875, shortly after completing two of his liturgically-based works, the Requiem and a Stabat Mater. Curiously, though, the text to La Religieuse is rather at odds with its title, for it’s described as a secular cantata after a poem by Charles Hubert Millevoye, and it was written for famed mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot. If the woman portrayed in these verses is indeed a nun, she needs to be doing some serious penance, for she seems to be pining away and longing for death over some lost lover. Listening to this gloriously beautiful extended dramatic setting for mezzo and orchestra, it’s hard to understand why Gouvy wasn’t successful in his two attempts at an opera. Clémentine Margaine is magnificent.

One wonders if Gouvy didn’t have Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words in mind when he composed his Sérénades for solo piano. The keyboard figurations and flourishes are closer to Chopin than they are to Mendelssohn, but the melodies are pure song. I’m probably guilty of overusing the words “beautiful” and “gorgeous” in my reviews, but I don’t know what other adjectives to summon for a description of these brief salon gems, so winsomely and winningly played by pianist Emmanuelle Swiercz.

With his Byron-based Le Giaour, Schiller-based Jeanne d’Arc, and non-literary-based Festival overtures, Gouvy proves himself a master of the concert overture/tone poem/orchestral fantasy genre on a par with Berlioz, Dvořák, Liszt, Saint-Saëns, and Tchaikovsky.

Gouvy’s chamber works—represented here by two string quartets and a piano trio—range in content and style from somewhere between Haydn to Spohr, Onslow, Conradin Kreutzer, and Mendelssohn, with one composer conspicuous by his absence: There’s not a trace of Beethoven.

If you’ve heretofore been hesitant to sample the music of Théodore Gouvy, I’d strongly encourage you to acquire this collection, which allows you to familiarize yourself with his music in a number of distinct genres. The performances are all really good, the recordings excellent, and the lavishly appointed book they come in a conversation piece unto itself

-- Fanfare

Renaud (1783) marked Sacchini's debut in Paris. Despite much criticism from the supporters of his rivals Gluck and Piccinni, Renaud was a success and Sacchini became the new favourite of Marie- Antoinette. Encouraged by the public who saw him as one of the finest composers of that time, he enriched the repertoire of the Paris Opéra with several masterpieces. Some of them were staged regularly for many years. Renaud was presented almost without interruption until 1799, and was revived in 1815. This recording has been made at the Arsenal of Metz in October 2012.

In the midst of the artistic debate between the German and Italian styles, as the Age of Enlightenment was lighting up its final fires during the reign of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, Johann Christian Bach (the youngest of the sons of the great Johann Sebastian) was presenting to Paris his Amadis de Gaule. Reduced and revised from a libretto of Quinault for Lully, this operatic work is shot through from one end to the other with the first frissons of the awakening Romanticism. Under the direction of Didier Talpain, a leading specialist in this repertoire, and played on period instruments, Amadis de Gaule demanded a solo team seasoned in the heroism of the tragédies lyriques in the Gluckian manner. In Pierre-Yves Pruvot, Hjördis Thébault, Philippe Do and Katia Vellétaz one finds on this recording a quartet remarkable for their range of colours and balance, all four equipped with exemplary diction and a shared dramatic sensibility which is both poignant and passionate.